With its eateries targeted in New York City's fast food worker one-day strike Thursday in New York City, Louisville-based YUM! Brands responded to protests that workers earn too little to live.

"We pay our associates competitive salaries, [and] provide robust training and development so they can have great careers," Yum spokesperson Virginia Ferguson said in an email Thursday.

Fast food workers protested minimum wage jobs in New York City in a mass walkout, the New York Times reported Thursday.

"Fast food workers at several restaurants in New York walked off the job Thursday, firing the first salvo in what workplace experts say is the biggest effort to unionize fast food workers ever undertaken in the United States," The Times' Steven Greenhouse reported.

Taco Bell is listed as one of the eateries affected in the campaign mounted by 40 full-time union organizers. Organizers list www.fastfoodforward.org as a clearinghouse for information on the drive that also includes Facebook and Twitter. Also behind the effort is the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, the Times reported. Median income for NYC fast food workers averages $9 per hour, or $18,500.

Organizers list www.fastfoodforward.org as a clearinghouse for information on the drive that also includes Facebook and Twitter. Also behind the effort is the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, the Times reported. Median income for NYC fast food workers averages $9 per hour, or $18,500. Spokespersons for YUM! Brands and Taco Bell, could not immediately be reached for comment.

To read more, see the New York Times at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/nyregion/drive-to-unionize-fast-food-workers-opens-in-ny.html?pagewanted=2&hp

Louisville, Kentucky • Southern Indiana

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However you define this “new age of austerity,” the fact is that we have less to spend and are now redefining our standards of living. How we come to terms with new economic realities and our hopes that our children can realize a middle class lifestyle is an important conversation, one the Courier-Journal hopes to lead. Courier-Journal journalist Jere Downs reports, writes, and tracks down the information that all of us need to raise our standard of living. The granddaughter of an auto worker and a witness to the decline of the middle class in her native Detroit, Downs is a longtime business writer, and graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.• Contact Jere with story ideas or feedback